Abstract [en]

The so-called “Arab Spring” has caused all kinds of new insurgent oppositional movements all around the world to emerge. Azerbaijani online opposition, inspired by the ‘success’ of revolutions in Middle East and organized mostly on social media was not an exception within this scope. However, Azerbaijan is also one of the best examples to clearly show that the technically savvy state and its surveillative potentials are constantly developing themselves as well. Mainly based on Evgeny Morozov’s concept of the net delusion this presentation looks at Azerbaijan and its new media based oppositional movements and aims to show how these efforts are crushed down by surveillative state apparatus.

The presentation looks at the online practices of oppositional politics from the perspective of gender dynamics and conducts gender-based categorization of Internet based protesters, with the political, economic and social classifications. Such a categorization of women activists, done together with the historical overview of networked practices of offline political struggle, helps to determine how different strata of society are affected by surveillative apparatuses of the state.

Presentation insists that only Internet and social media based politics are not enough, as the gender perspective of the topic clearly shows – since women protesters are the most affected ones by oppressive politics of the state.